"Journalists are the most important part of the world."
At least we are according to Amanda Lorber, editor in chief of the Cypress Bay High School newspaper The Circuit. Amanda and her staff are the new focus of MTV's "The Paper," a reality show about life in a newsroom.
There's only one problem: it isn't a newsroom; it's a high school class. No self-respecting newspaper would allow any external media to chronicle the unimportant, uninteresting and irrelevant events that transpire within their work area.
Journalists exist to relay the news. Obviously, dramatic antics will pop up every now and again, but these scenarios exist in any working environment. The only important and noteworthy thing about a newspaper and its staff is the final product placed on the stands.
With this in mind, The Circuit staff forgot one of the most basic rules of our industry - we are not the story. Journalists don't exist to be the stars of a reality show; we exist to deliver strong, factual, entertaining and interesting news to our audience.
It's already difficult enough to be a doctor or lawyer with shows like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Law and Order." People develop a disillusioned view of these careers and expect every ER doctor to be sleeping with a nurse and every lawyer to have high profile murder cases.
Hopefully, the general audience for these shows can tell the difference between reality and fantasy, but it still warps the perceptions of these career fields. We begin to expect certain actions and events from doctors, nurses, police officers and even journalists. Because of this, industries that should be held in high respect are reduced to primetime soaps.
The unfortunate staff of The Circuit has entered itself into the worst genre of television possible, because everyone loses in a reality show.
Most of these journalistic-hopefuls screwed their careers in the very first episode. After their last issue under the "old" editor in chief, the staff celebrated with a house party that included a game involving ping-pong balls, red plastic cups and a mysterious unseen liquid. Two of the show's characters, Trevor Ballard and Giana Pacinelli, sneaked upstairs for some "alone" time.
Not to say high school students are required to be "innocent," but Web sites like Facebook and MySpace already cause future employees trouble. The first episode of this show is basically like "Minors Gone Wild."
True, these high school staffers could have been drinking water or sparkling cider. Trever and his girlfriend Giana could have just gone upstairs to talk or snuggle. But I doubt future employers will view their actions as such.
The second screw from this reality show comes in the form of character assassination.
Amanda is a self-righteous, obnoxious know-it-all who sends her staff into rage at the sound of her voice. She's about as well-equipped to lead a publication as a first-year med student is to perform heart surgery. Amanda may know the mechanics, but she lacks the grace to direct her nurses and the finesse to keep the patient alive.
The managing editor is anything but. Alex Angert is a sheepish, two-faced mediator between the big, bad editor and his unhappy peers. Instead of plotting to overthrow a leader who cannot be fired by the staff, he should be concentrating on assisting Amanda in making the newspaper the best possible publication. Although, with Amanda's obvious control issues, it's unlikely she'll actually let Alex do his job.
Trevor and Giana apparently didn't get enough "alone" time during the house party, because the only time you see either of them in the season preview, they are groping each other like bunnies in spring.
Adam Brock is a lot less striking than his name implies. The first time this overdramatic queen of advertising throws a tantrum in a real newsroom, he'll be fired. Being passed up for editor in chief is a major let down, but for Adam to drop to his knees and cry in agony, in the middle of a hallway surrounded by his coworkers extinguished any respect his peers had for him.
Scratch that; throwing papers down during production and yelling, "You don't see what they do, why can't you see what I see?" and storming out of the room in a huff of his own awesomeness looks to be the final nail in a coffin designated for Adam's professionalism.
If anything, Rhonda Weiss is the only victim in this poorly-acted melodrama. Rhonda, the adviser for The Circuit, plays the role of the overstressed mother-figure bent on pleasing everyone. Too bad her children are unruly and unappeasable, too caught up in their own ambitions, wants and needs to find a place of compromise, ethics and integrity.
These potential future pillars of the journalism industry have shamed the very job they wanted to immortalize. And worse, they have dragged their own good names through the mud, and a good name is one of the most prized processions a journalist can own.
To be fair, these high school students could be amazing people. They could be responsible, talented, journalistically attuned, career-ambitious individuals, but at the end of the season, none of those qualities matter. Because in the end, no newspaper wants to use a byline tattered with a mixture of mud and shame.
Andy Harper is a senior journalism major.
Posted: 4/21/08 on www.mtsusidelines.com
CHECK OUT GAWKER.COM FOR A RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE COLUMN!
http://gawker.com/382169/high-school-journalists-are-so-immature-says-college-journalist
